Learning to fly
by Beautiful-Chaos-Girl
Summary: Non-hunting AU. John is still in the Marines and his boys follow him wherever he's assigned. Not the best environment for an interest in the creative arts to flourish. Despite this, Sam has found himself in the medium of dance. And one day, if John and Dean take the time, they might just start to understand it.
1. Chapter 1

Sam limps in the door, hurling his bag at the couch and collapsing next to it. He wrenches off his tennis shoes, wincing and swearing as the movement jars his ankle. He cannot wait to ice and elevate it. He bandages it with practiced ease, staggers to the freezer and grabs an ice pack. Finally, when his ankle is propped on several cushions and covered in frozen gel, he can relax. He pops some Nurofen and slumps back on the couch. Hopefully, if he listens to his "Relax" playlist for long enough, he can forget about Becky Rosen and her obnoxious squealing. Every damn time she jumped, she squealed. Every time the landing went a little bit wrong she shrieked. God forbid Sam's hold on her so much as wobble as he caught her. She would have screamed the place down. He almost missed Ruby's incessant tall jokes. Almost.

 _Remember Sam. You love dancing. You chose this._

He sighed, letting the adrenaline and fatigue fade from his system. He needed to treasure these moments of quiet. Soon his brother will be home from football and his dad will be calling from the base. Dean will want to take a look at his ankle (even though there is nothing he can do for it that Sam hasn't already done) and Dad will want to know all about the "soccer" accident that caused this injury. It'll be a whole thing that Sam is frankly not in the mood for right now. It's bad enough to have to lie to his family about his favourite thing. It's a whole different thing to make up lies for a sport he knows nothing about and really doesn't care for. The good thing is at least Dad and Dean don't know or care that much about soccer either so they believe him.

Take me to church starts to ring in his ears and he smiles. The memory of the video plays in his mind Sergei Polunin, rebelling against gravity, against his aching joints, the beat of the song. Against everything but his own heartbeat. He knew, Sam could tell. He knew what if felt like to fly, to defy the world and leave it all behind. Others achieved it through imagination, fantasy, escape. Sam could do it literally. That's why he danced. That's why he endured black toenails and aching feet, stupid dance partners and unrelenting teachers. That's why he went to ballet, learnt belly dancing for a year, slipped in to jazz classes and watched hours of hip hop online until he taught himself the moves. Because in the moment when the music held him up, the steps all went right and his body moved just the way it should… he was limitless. A miracle. More than Sammy the little brother, the nerd, the son who wasn't manly enough, the shy one, the drifter, the motherless. He was light and grace, geometry and movement. Incarnate kinetic potential.

The creak of the opening door has him thumbing away his playlist and sitting up. The pain in his foot flares and he grits his teeth.

"Sammy!" Dean bursts through the door, reeking of sweat and dirt. "How was practice?"

"Fan-fucking-tastic" Sam replies with clenched jaw.

"Jeez! How did you do that?" Dean rushed to his side, peering over his foot like Sam knew he would. To be fair, it did look pretty beat up.

"Hold on, Dad's calling, I'll tell you both the story as the same time" Sam clicked onto the skype icon on his laptop and answered the call. "Hi Dad"

"Sam's telling us how he hurt his ankle" Dean called, leaning over the sofa to get his father's attention

"Botched a slide tackle trying to keep Simon from scoring" Sam told the screen.

"Did it work?" his father asks mildly, his son's injury only minorly interesting.

Sam smiled and nodded. While if he was going to pretend to play soccer he may as well pretend to be good at it.

"Well that's something" John smiled briefly before looking to Dean. "How was football?"

"So good! My tackles are so much better since we ran those drills Dad" Dean whapped his brother on the arm, ignoring the glare he got in return. "This old geezer really knows a thing or two"

"If you want any more help you'll quit it with the old geezer shit" John said gruffly but Dean kept on grinning.

Sam sighed minutely, pulling his leg of the cushion, gathering up his things and hobbling away to his room. Dad and Dean, who are going through his practice drills play by play, don't even see him leave.

He flops down onto his bed but doesn't bother re-icing his ankle. It just needs rest and is already less painful than it was originally. He got his dance gear out of his bag and put it with the rest of things to cart to the laundromat tomorrow. He spends the rest of the afternoon working on homework until the food Dad ordered for dinner arrives. As he expected, no one asks him anything more about "soccer practice".


	2. Chapter 2

The studio door squeaks as Sam hip checks it open. He finishes his text to Dean " _Practice again 2day. Will b late home"._ He turns the ringer off and puts it away into his bag. A few other dancers are already in the studio, practicing for their upcoming showcase. Ruby and Becky are at the barre, warming up. Ash had his ear buds in and was bopping around in a style that resembled no type of dancing Sam had ever seen. Still, Ash made it look good. Sam grinned, shaking his head. That kid really did dance to the beat of his own drum.

He shucked off his jacket and shoes, dumping them onto his bag. He shuffled over to a clear space in the room, going through his stretches and clearing his head. Between sprinting to the laundromat and back before Dean woke up, a science test and losing his math book he was yearning to get some stress relief. He took a deep breath and sat down, bending at the waist to stretch out his spine. Right now, it didn't matter that his English paper was due in 2 days, that Dad wouldn't be home for a month, that Jessica hadn't spoken to him at lunch. Right now, what mattered was the music, the space and his body.

The pleasant ache in his body as he stretched helped shift the stiffness from being hunched over a desk all day. His ankle was still a little tender but he could get passed that. He was about to get up and start trying out a few moves when Madame MacLeod bustled in. The pint sized red haired was a harried as she ever was. Her long ballgown-esque dress, shifted around her legs as she negotiated her way into the room, burdened with several books, a bag, her trust velvet pouch of crystals and herbs she claimed, "cleansed and sanctified the energy of the room, clarifying mental focus and connecting body to spirit". Sam smiled to see her.

"Need help there, Miss?"

"O Samuel, less of the Miss and more of the taking these huge tomes into those strapping arms of yours. Lots to do today and little time to accomplish them."

Sam took her books from her and put them on the table she kept in the corner of the room next to the stereo, CD collection and props closet.

"I do hope Samuel dear, that you are not going to attempt any ballet foot work today" She said, eyeing his ankle.

"But I need to work on my arabesque for the final exam…."

"1 day off will not throw out all the hard work you have been doing. A broken ankle very could. Strap that foot and work on your jazz routine"

Sam sighed and nodded, digging into the class medical kit for an ace bandage. He had a lot of practice in this kind of first aid.

"Hey Sam"

He looked up to see Ash standing over him, twisting a hair tie around his long mop.

"Hi Ash. Headband not cutting it today?"

"Nah man. These luscious locks are getting harder and harder to keep under wraps."

"You know you can cut hair, right?"

"I could say the same to you Mr. boy band heart throb."

Sam chuckled "Yeah but I don't complain about my hair"

"No, you just tie it up into one of those hipster man bun things." Ash replied, handing him his spare hair tie. Ash had loaned him a hair tie every lesson since the first time Sam met him. It was how they became friends in fact.

"Hey, if it works, it works" Sam took the hair tie and pulled his hair up and back.

"You know I have tons of those" Ash said, sitting down next to him "You could keep it and just wear your hair up all the time. It looks good"

"Yeah but Dean…"

Ash groaned and flopped onto his back. "Dean, Dean, Dean. He's your excuse for everything. You can never do anything because Dean would get upset. Or your Dad. I bet you haven't told them about the upcoming show case"

"Why would I tell them? I have a good thing going here Ash. Telling them about it would just ruin it."

"They should see how good you are Sam. You've worked too hard at dancing to keep pretending to be a mediocre soccer player."

"I've worked too hard at dancing to have my brother call me a sissy or my dad to act like I'm an embarrassment. They wouldn't get it, okay? My Dad's idea of what guys should do is as traditional as it gets and Dean fits right into it. He's strong, athletic, fast…"

"Sam you're strong and athletic and fast"

"Forget it Ash. This isn't a movie where everybody learns important life lessons about love and acceptance. This is real life. One day I'll have to tell my Dad I don't wanna go into the Marines and that I want to go to Julliard. And that will mess up his grand revenge plans and break his heart. It's more than likely he'll never speak to me again."

"Sam, it's not your job to find the people that killed your mom..."

"Don't Ash. Just. Don't" Sam looked him dead in the face, expression cold and eyes blazing.

In that moment, he regretted the day he told Ash about his mom. She and his father had meet in the forces when they were both deployed to Afghanistan, her Army, him Marines.

According to the fragments he'd been able to wheedle out of Dean it was all sunshine and roses until an insurgence fighter group blew up the house where Mom had been. She wasn't even supposed to be there, she was supposed on a plane to America with baby Sam and four-year-old Dean. But red tape got in the way and Dad came home from the embassy to find the place ablaze. He could only rescue the boys before the whole place caved in. Since then Dad had been obsessed with finding the people responsible. Sam knew was meant to sign up as soon as he was legally able, in one years' time. He also knew there was no way he could. All the unofficial training his father had put them through growing up (and the arguments that ensued as a result) had shown him that. Of course, Dean was all for it and couldn't understand why Sam wasn't. In the end, it just became easier to pretend everything was fine. Sam signed up to "soccer" with the excuse that it would boost his fitness for the aptitude test because he knew his father would agree to it then. Since then everything had calmed down and Sam wasn't going to do anything to ruin it.

"Sorry man. I didn't mean to… I mean I just wanted to…"

"I know Ash. Just drop alright?"

"Alright"

The rest of the practice was pretty sombre after that, at least for Sam. Madame Macleod went on about her crystals and the importance of form for a bit. Becky squealed, Ruby called him a moose, Ash spaced out to his own music and ignored the choreography. Sam drifted into his own corner, mechanically working through his jazz routine. It was quiet, soothing. But he didn't soar. Not today.


End file.
